Arleigh Burke-class Guided Missile Destroyer
The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer is a class of destroyers in service with the United States Navy. Armed with missiles and an advanced AEGIS radar system, they are some of the most advanced ships in service with the Navy. Characteristics The ships of the Arleigh Burke-class are among the largest destroyers built in the United States. Only the Spruance and Kidd were longer; the Zumwalt and William Massie are longer as well. The Arleigh Burke class are multi-mission ships with a "combination of... an advanced anti-submarine warfare system, land attack cruise missiles, ship-to-ship missiles, and advanced anti-aircraft missiles." The larger Ticonderoga-class ships were constructed on Spruance-class hull forms, but are designated as cruisers due to their radically different mission and weapons systems. The Arleigh Burke class on the other hand were designed with a new, large, water-plane area-hull form characterized by a wide flaring bow which significantly improves sea-keeping ability. The hull form is designed to permit high speed in high sea states. The Arleigh Burke's designers incorporated lessons learned from the Ticonderoga-''class guided-missile cruisers; with the ''Arleigh Burke-class, the U.S. Navy also returned to all-steel construction. An earlier generation had combined a steel hull with an innovative superstructure made of lighter aluminum to reduce top weight, but the lighter metal proved vulnerable to cracking. Aluminum is also less fire-resistant than steel; a 1975 fire aboard the Belknap (CG-26) gutted her aluminum superstructure. Battle damage to Royal Navy ships exacerbated by their aluminum superstructures during the 1982 Falklands War supported the decision to use steel. Another lesson from the Falklands War led the navy to protect the ship's vital spaces with double-spaced steel armor (creating a buffer for modern rockets), and kevlar spall liners. The Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers were deemed too expensive to continue building and too difficult to further upgrade. The angled rather than traditional vertical surfaces and the tripod mainmast of the Arleigh Burke design are stealth techniques, which make the ship more difficult to detect, in particular by anti-ship missiles. Ships in Class Due to this class having 100 ships, the standard table is not present as well as homeports. Also, some ships are unnamed IRL, so they have fictional names for the sake of RP. Ship Gallery Nathan James and William Massie.PNG|''Nathan James'' (DDG-151) sailing alongside the ''William Massie'' (DDG-1020). Engagements Weapons Primary *x1 5" Mk-45 mod 4 gun turret (Flights I to III, IV) *x1 5" Mk-1 Surface-Mounted Railgun (DDG-100, Flight IIIA) Secondary *96-cell Mk-41 Vertical Launch System **RIM-66M Standard **RIM-161 SM-3 **RIM-162 ESSM **BGM-209 Tomahawk II **RUM-139 VL-ASROC **RIM-174 Standard ERAM **AGM-150 Guardian **BMG-240 Impeller *x2 Mk-141 RGM-100 Harpoon II launchers *x2 Mk-36 triple torpedo tubes **Mark 46 Spear (anti-ship) **Mark 50 Barracuda (anti-submarine) **Mark 54 Mako (anti-submarine) Tertiary *x2 Vanguard Mk. 52 Close-In Weapons System Aircraft *x2 Sikorsky MH-60 Seahawk multi-role helicopters **x3 Mark 54 Mako anti-submarine torpedoes **x8 AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles **x2 M240 machine guns Unmanned Aerial Vehicles *x1 Boeing Insitu ScanEagle reconaissance drone Trivia *The Nathan James is named after the fictional Arleigh Burke-class destroyer of the same name from TNT's The Last Ship. The James even shares the same hull classification (guided missile destroyer 151) and key crew members from the show, including civillian crew members Tex and Dr. Rachel Scott. **The Nathan James is the only ship in the Arleigh Burke-class to be equipted with an optical and radar cloak. *''Jackson Thomas'' was named after USS Zumwalt DDG-1000's Age of Sail RP character, which he requested. *USS Kidd was given a railgun due to it having one in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Harmonmj13 was watching the movie around the time he built the ship in October of 2014. *''O'Hare'' was named after Lieutenant Commander Edward "Butch" O'Hare, a U.S. naval pilot and 1942 Medal of Honor recipient who was shot down by Japanese aircraft during World War II, and is memorialized at Chicago-O'Hare International Airport. **In RP, DDG-149 is the second ship in the Navy to be named after the pilot, the first was of the Gearing-class. *''Chris Kyle'' is named after Chief Petty Officer Christopher Scott "Chris" Kyle, a former member of SEAL Team 3 who is the most lethal sniper in the history of the United States military, the author of the bestselling autobiography American Sniper, and was killed by a gunman in 2013. **The Chris Kyle's motto is "Right on Target." *There are only 76 Arleigh Burke''s in real life, but Harmonmj13 expanded it to 100 to connect the ''Nathan James. *The Alexander Williams is named after FlammeumDraco333's Age of Sail character. *Being a 100-ship class, all the ships are divided up between each U.S. fleet (25 serve in the Atlantic, 25 serve in the Pacific, 25 serve on Tenelapis, and 25 serve on Mars). *In their current build, the Arleigh Burkes can take down the entire airwings of two aircraft carriers, consisting of all-Vanilla aircraft, in the additional Hansa missions without taking a scratch (NOTE: this was tested with two Burkes ahead of a carrier and 4 frigates). This feat has yet to be tested against an all-Hansa aircraft wing. Category:Vessel Classes by Harmonmj13 Category:United States Ships Category:Destroyers Category:Real Life Vessels